00:00okay what's going on guys and welcome to our first leg day of the ultimate push-pull leg series
00:16in this video we're doing six lower body exercises that target the quads hamstrings glutes and calves
00:22and then we're finishing things off with one exercise for the abs all right so as usual we're
00:27starting with a quick general warm-up this is especially important on leg day because it's
00:31literally half your body so i'll do a solid five to ten minutes on the treadmill or stairmaster
00:36and then go through a quick series of dynamic stretches that i'll put up here on the screen
00:40it looks like more than it is usually only takes me about two minutes tops from there we're jumping
00:45into just one heavy set of two to four reps on the squat remember in this push-pull legs routine we're
00:50using a minimalistic approach to strength and an optimization approach to hypertrophy so for the
00:56bench press and deadlift we're just doing one hard set per week that's it and then we'll do two back
01:01offsets with some variation for each lift so here i'll do a pyramid warm-up and weight across four or
01:07five warm-up sets as you can see here on the screen until i get to my working weight which will be
01:11something in the range of 85 to 90 percent of my one rep max for two to four reps so let's say your
01:17one rep max is 405 pounds you'd want to choose a weight around 345 pounds to 365 pounds for your top
01:24set of two to four reps this shouldn't be an rpe 10 max effort set but it should be something around
01:29an rpe of eight or nine so you don't want to be leaving more than one or two reps in the tank
01:34and remember we're only doing one set so it does need to be challenging now if you're someone who
01:38only cares about building muscle and couldn't care less about strength or if you can't squat or simply
01:43don't want to squat you can replace the squat work with hack squats as a first substitution option
01:47or bulgarian split squats as a second option in either case to make it a bit more hypertrophy
01:52focused you can just boost the rep range to four to six reps instead of two to four reps and keep
01:57everything else the same after the heavy top set we're doing two back offsets for five reps on the
02:02paused squat where we'll be pausing for about one to two seconds in the hole on each rep for these
02:07you'll want to drop the weight back to about 75 percent of what you did for your heavy top set
02:12so let's say you did 365 pounds for your top set you do around 275 pounds for your paused squats for
02:18five reps for these you want to take in a big breath at the top and then sit back and down between
02:23your legs keeping your breath held as you pause for one to two seconds and then explode up out of
02:28the hole with as much explosive force as possible as you explode up try to keep in mind that the bar
02:33should travel in as close to a straight line as possible centered over the middle of your foot
02:38and in general i like pause squats because doing five paused reps is a lot harder than doing five
02:43normal reps that's because when you pause you lose any stored elastic energy in your tendons which
02:48forces your quads and glutes to overcome the load from a dead stop and because they're so much harder
02:53this means you're forced to use lighter weights which means you can get the same hypertrophic stimulus
02:58with lighter loads and less overall joint and body stress pausing also helps ensure that you're
03:03reaching proper depth on each and every rep and can help ingrain good technique habits for any heavier
03:08sets you do as well okay after squats we're moving on to three sets of eight to ten reps on the barbell
03:13romanian deadlift just a quick technique recap here you want to lift the barbell off the rack
03:18take two or three steps back push your hips back as the weight drops down and then reverse the motion
03:23once the bar gets somewhere between just below knee level and mid shin level or at least before your
03:28lower back starts to round then you should reverse the motion by lifting your chest up and thrusting
03:33your hips forward a little knee bend is fine but you should try to keep a more or less vertical shin angle
03:38keeping the bar in tight and centered over the middle of your foot now there are two common
03:43concerns i hear about rdls the first is that some people say they only feel it in their lower back
03:47not in their hamstrings and if this applies to you the first thing i do is make sure that you're not
03:52letting the barbell drift forward away from your legs this can cause the low back to take over in
03:57order to pull the bar back in remember that the bar should be moving straight up and straight down
04:02i also find that wearing a belt can help with this issue even though emg data shows that overall
04:06wearing a belt shouldn't substantially reduce lower back muscle activity i do find it helps me to direct
04:12more attention to my hamstrings and reduces that uncomfortable lower back pump that you can sometimes
04:16feel with rdls now obviously the spinal erectors have to contract on rdls to prevent you from just
04:22curling over so it's impossible to completely take the lower back out but you can shift the emphasis
04:27to the hamstrings a bit more with those two tips another common question i get is how to target the
04:32hamstrings more versus the glutes more with rdls this one's pretty simple if you want to target your
04:37glutes more think about squeezing your glutes to move the weight and then you can optionally squeeze
04:41your glutes together at the top of the lift that glute squeeze honestly probably isn't doing a whole
04:46lot on its own but can help some people sort of find the muscle better with this cue you can almost
04:50think of the lift more like a vertical hip thrust on the other hand if you want to make it more
04:54hamstring dominant i would just completely cut out the top 10 to 25 percent of the lift this will
04:59keep more of the emphasis on the hamstring stretch in the bottom half and you can even add a little
05:03pause at the bottom to accentuate the stretch further all right so after that we're moving on
05:07to two sets of 10 reps per leg on the dumbbell walking lunge so that's 20 total strides per set
05:14for this one i figured i'd highlight three things that you should avoid when doing walking lunges first
05:18avoid cutting your depth short notice that on each and every rep my knee softly makes contact with the
05:24floor it's very common for people to start limiting their depth toward the end of the set once the reps
05:28start getting really hard but it's a lot better to be more consistent with your reps rather than just
05:33aiming for an arbitrary rep count while cutting many of those reps short now if you're afraid of hurting
05:38your knees on the floor you may be making the second mistake on my list which is free falling on the
05:42negative a lot of people try to rush through their lunges because they are a fairly gruesome exercise
05:47but despite that you should think of them like you should any other hypertrophy focused movement where
05:51you're actively controlling and resisting the negative if you're letting gravity take over on the negative then
05:56you're missing out on the most important aspect of the lift so take your time and be intentional
06:01with every rep you do and the third thing to avoid is letting your grip strength limit the load that you can use
06:06a lot of people go way too light on walking lunges they end their set once they feel fatigued
06:10but don't actually approach muscular failure one of the main reasons for this is that they just pick up
06:15some relatively light dumbbells that they can grip easily but we're not trying to train our forearms here
06:20so if your grip is a limiting factor i definitely recommend strapping in and using some dumbbells
06:24that'll actually get your legs close to failure by the end of the set okay after that we're moving on
06:29to three sets of 10 to 12 reps on the seated leg curl another couple quick tips here first remember
06:34that there was a study published in 2021 which found that seated leg curls led to about 56 percent
06:40more muscle growth than lying leg curls across a 12-week training study and the most likely reason for
06:45this is that the seated leg curl was challenging the hamstrings in a more lengthened position than
06:50lying leg curl in other words you can load the hamstrings with more stretch when you're seated
06:54than when you're lying however if you set the seat too far back you actually lose a lot of that stretch
06:59so you want to make sure that your torso is positioned far enough forward on the machine that you feel a
07:04solid stretch in your hamstrings before you start the set if you don't feel any stretch in your hamstrings
07:08in the starting position you may not have the seat up far enough or you may want to lean forward over
07:13the machine a bit until you feel that tug of passive tension in your hamstrings also remember
07:18that the hamstrings cross both the hip joint and the knee joint so pointing the toes in or out by
07:24rotating the legs at the hip does seem to impact which area of the hamstrings is emphasized at least
07:29emg evidence shows that the inner hamstrings activate more when the toes are pointed in and the
07:35outer hamstrings activate more when the toes are pointed out so for this one you can think of pointing
07:40your toes in the direction of the region you're trying to emphasize point them out for the outer
07:45hamstrings and point them in for the inner hamstrings of course because emg readings have never been
07:50formally validated as being predictive of long-term hypertrophy outcomes you should think of this
07:54suggestion as just something to play around with rather than a proven fact but since we're doing three
08:00sets here anyway why not point the toes slightly out for the first set slightly in for the second set
08:05and then straight ahead for the third set of course if you feel your hamstrings working much better with
08:09one toe position over the others i'd simply roll with that one and if either position feels awkward
08:14or uncomfortable for you there's no reason that you have to do it but assuming they all feel fine to
08:18you why not switch it up from set to set for some variety okay up next we're doing four sets of 10 to
08:2412 reps on the leg press toe press and i like doing this movement for the calves because after a high
08:28volume leg day like this one you can just sit down and give your back and your hips a little break
08:32while you focus entirely on the calves now similar to the leg curl pointing your toes in different
08:37directions can impact which region of the calves are emphasized except unlike with the leg curl we
08:43can say this with much more confidence for the calves because we actually have a long-term training
08:48study that measured muscle growth directly this is a figure from a 2020 study that had 22 subjects
08:53train their calves for nine weeks with either their feet pointed out feet pointed in or feet pointed
08:58straight ahead and as you can see in the figure pointing the toes out grew the medial or inside
09:03part of the calves better while pointing the toes in grew the lateral or outside part of the calves
09:08better and pointing them straight ahead grew both the inside and the outside pretty evenly so this
09:13tells us that if you're trying to grow the outer calves a bit more you should consider pointing your
09:16toes in if you're trying to grow the inner calves a bit more maybe so they're more visible from the
09:21front you should try pointing your toes out and since we're doing four sets here we might as well
09:26experiment with the different positions so i'd suggest pointing them out for set one pointing
09:30them in for set two and then pointing them straight ahead for set three and four or again similar to
09:35the leg curl if either position feels particularly awkward for you or significantly limits the amount
09:40of load you can use i just go with the position that you feel strongest and most comfortable with
09:44and then to finish off the workout we're doing three sets of 10 to 12 reps on the decline
09:49plate crunch i find that direct ab work doesn't fit perfectly into either the push pull or leg day but i tend to
09:54put ab work on my leg days just because most ab work will also work the hip flexors which will
09:58be nice and warmed up after all that leg work so for this one you want to hold a plate to your chest
10:02and focus on squeezing your abs together don't just hinge at your hips that'll mostly target the hip
10:07flexors instead allow your lower back to round as you squeeze your six pack together and over time you
10:12should be keeping track of the weights you're using and the number of reps you're hitting while aiming
10:16to add either some weight or a rep from session to session this will ensure that you're actually
10:20progressively overloading your abs and triggering their development just a few overloading sets like
10:24this will do a whole lot more for increasing that pop factor on your midsection than pretty much
10:29any amount of cardio style ab circuits will and in a fraction of the time okay so after this leg day
10:34we've got the first half of the full week of training completed and i'll be covering the
10:37remaining three workouts in three upcoming videos here on the channel but if you'd like to have the
10:42full 12 weeks of training all in one place right away you can pick up the full ultimate push
10:47pull legs hypertrophy system over on jeffnipper.com the program comes with a full ebook explaining all
10:52the methods used in the program an excel spreadsheet a library full of exercise demos from me coaching
10:57cues for every exercise and plenty more it also comes in a four day five day and six day per week
11:02version so you can still run the program even if you don't have six days per week available to train
11:06so i'll leave a little more info about that in the description box down below and that's it for this
11:10one guys thank you so much for watching don't forget to leave me a thumbs up if you enjoyed the video
11:14subscribe if you haven't already and i'll see you guys all here in the next one
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